Mosinee celebrates annual LogJam Festival

Lumberjack Charlie Goodmundson heads for the water while trying to run across several logs as part of the All American Lumberjack Show during the 2013 Little Bull Falls LogJam Festival in Mosinee.
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MOSINEE – The ninth Annual Little Bull Falls LogJam Festival will be an opportunity for visitors to rediscover what life was like for early Wisconsin settlers.

Visitors will be treated to events and exhibits like woodcarving, a 12 and under Cane Pole Fishing Tournament, Rendezvous Encampment living history demonstrations, a Historical Museum exhibit, and live music throughout the weekend. New to the LogJam this year will be an auction of wooden scupltures at 3 p.m. Sunday, carved by Danczyk Woodcraft Chainsaw Carving from noon that day until the auction.

Chad Danczyk, co-owner of Danczyk Woodcraft Chainsaw Carving, will return to the LogJam for the third time. Danczyk said in January 2011, he was cutting firewood and, on a whim, decided to carve a bear with a chainsaw.

"It was a spur of the moment thing," Danczyk said. "I've been doing it full-time ever since."

Danczyk will be carving every day of the LogJam: once on Aug. 8, three times on Aug. 9, and once on Aug. 10.

Al Erickson said when he became mayor of Mosinee, he felt the city needed a festival. So in 2006, the year before the city's sesquicentennial, Erickson helped organize a two-day event that featured lumberjacks, rendezvous traders, food and entertainment.

"It was pretty small when it was just two days," Erickson said. "We had November weather in August, but we made it through, and we've kept it growing."

Erickson said the Rendezvous Encampment is incredibly realistic as a result of the re-enactors' devotion. Ray Glazner, a historian who has 30 to 40 years of experience reenacting American history, said he picks the re-enactors for the event himself, and that they spend the weekend in character.

"We camp there, we don't go home at night," Glazner said. "Some re-enacting groups go into their tents, change into street clothes, go out to dinner and stay in a motel. Everyone you see (at the LogJam) will be living there for the weekend."